At 12:54 AM +0200 8/2/04, Richard Brekne wrote: >Yes... but I wonder... if you heard both types of Steinways side by >side... blindtest so you didnt know which was which... what you >would like best and why That's the old question abut what sounds better, the cold motionless unison or the one which breathes slightly. Which is related to the question, is there any such thing as a pure unison, or is it, like the pure octave, a myth. Me, I like a little breathing in my tuning. It's the difference between Snow White before and after she's kissed by Prince Charming. But with 6:3 octaves from the temperament on down and 3:1 for the upper half, I get enough breathing (signs of life) out of the octaves, not to need them in the unisons as well. Yes I regularly tune both types on one particular stage http://www.yellowbarn.org/. Both Ds, one a 1924 with a bias notched mid-treble section and the other a 1963. That's not your blindfold test, but I'd guess that if I were put to a blindfold test, what I'd notice in that mid-treble section is less a rolling in the unisons than the actual bloom of the sound, the actual initial swell of the sound as a well adjusted attack makes it possible. The big ear-opener for me was a Kawai voicing class at the 2002 NEECRegCofenerece, by Don Mannino and a Shigeru tech. After proper shoulder work, the tone actually swelled outwards in what could be described as the first half cycle of a false beat. But there was no second half or any further cycles to follow. Nothing but a beautifully variable attack. As far as bias notching's effect on tuning, it doesn't slow me down. In unison tuning I'm always zero-beating the highest partial I can hear which in the region (nowadays) is the 3d. Zero-beat the third and the 1st rolls objectionably, do the 2d instead and the 1st begins to behave itself. Zero-beat the first, while I can hear the other two boogieing away, I figure that's not audible more than ten feet off. What I check for in this situation is that any motion in the unisons doesn't interfere with consistency in the motion of octaves. >.... curious as always. Nothing like a curious cat to pull on a new thread ;-)
This PTG archive page provided courtesy of Moy Piano Service, LLC